Bay Street's '06 Season Features The Who's Tommy, Ruehl and Ballard

The Bay Street Theatre's 2006 season will feature a new production of The Who's Tommy as well as star turns by Mercedes Ruehl and Kaye Ballard.

The Who's Tommy, directed by Marcia Milgrom Dodge, will come to the stage of the Sag Harbor, Long Island theatre from June 13th through July 9th. Based on the seminal concept album by British rock band The Who, the show concerns a young autistic boy who after having been rendered autistic by witnessing an act of violence, becomes a pinball wizard. The show features music and lyrics by The Who's Pete Townsend as well as a book by Townsend and Des McAnuff, who won a Tony for directing the show's successful 1993-95 Broadway run (which featured Michael Cerveris, Norm Lewis, Sherie Rene Scott and Alice Ripley among its cast). No casting has been announced yet for the Bay Street production.

Ruehl, who won a Tony Award for her performance in Lost in Yonkers and who was seen on Broadway most recently in The Goat, will star as Mexican artist Frida Kahlo, who became equally famous for her colorful, intensely personal and visionary art and for a stormy personal life that included marriage to muralist Diego Rivera and affairs with men such as communist Leon Trotsky. Directed by Susana Tubert, Diane Shaffer's VIVA LA VIDA!, examining the last 18 months of Kahlo's life, will run from July 18th through August 6th.

Kaye Ballard (Carnival, The Golden Apple) will star with Paul Hecht (The Invention of Love) in Ronald Harwood's Quartet from May 23rd through June 4th. Directed by Tony Award-winner Jack Hofsiss (The Elephant Man), the show takes place in a home for retired opera singers. Crispin Whittell's comedy Darwin in Malibu, directed by Daniel Gerroll, will next run from August 15th through September 3rd.

For more information on the Bay Street Theatre (now in its 15th anniversary season), visit www.baystreet.org.